Document the application model

Feature Requests
1

I don't believe there is a way to document an application i.e. generate a word document listing every field/option/scene/view/conditional/equation/setting and so on. It would be very useful for catching a number of bugs and inconsistencies.

Is there in fact a way to do this? Does anyone else think this would be useful?

2

Nir, looks really good.  I'll play around with it for awhile.

Is there any way to sort by Origin?

As for the specif app-id, I don't see the problem anymore.  But back when I started, I definitely had fields from two different apps after swiching Find from one app to another.  Perhaps a caching issue?

Andy

3

Hey Andy,

I added the object name to each field, and also formatted the conditions better. Could you please verify that? If there is no match, it would help to have a screen capture of the conditions you see in the builder, so I can match that with your application structure.

Not sure what your first comment is about. 'find' works on a specific app_id, it can not operate on two apps at the same time. Can you show an example of fields you see that are not supposed to be in your app? To keep this more private, please email me directly at findknackfields@gmail.com

Hope this helps :-)

Nir

4

Nir, looks great and very helpful.  At the risk of looking a gift horse in the mouth, I have a few comments:

  • While I entered the App ID of one application, Next shows fields from both applications on my account.
  • Can you add the Object that each field lives in to the list?
  • Finally, perhaps more of a challenge:  Some fields (e.g. “Hot” in my app) have conditional rules that  are difficult to read/parse.  Can anything be done to put them in an organized list?  

Thanks much

Andy

5

Hey Andy,

I added a new tab to 'find' called The Book of Fields. It shows all fields in the app, along with their settings. Please review and let me know what you think.

Thanks

Nir

6

Shrey - I'm not a developer per se but now that I know what it is, it was easy enough to reformat. Thanks

Nir - "Find" works great for structure.  I've been hoping for a better way to keep track of the settings for every field, object, scene, and view.  For example, I deleted a field recently and did not remember it was being used by a view to hide another field.  The "hide" rule was left in place but the builder substituted yet another field in the conditional. 

7

Hi Andy,

Note that 'find' was built to locate where knack fields are used in an application.

I'd be happy to learn what you see as missing in 'find' and add new features to address that.

Thanks

Nir

8

https://api.knack.com/v1/applications/YOUR-APP-ID returns the entire structure in JSON format which can be easily parsed.

Which particular settings do you require?

9

Actually, the "find" solution doesn't show all settings that are stored in  https://api.knack.com/v1/applications/YOUR-APP-ID.  Has anyone writting a program to parse the output from this one to make it more readible?  Andy

10

"Find" site works well. No need for additional follow up. Thanks.

 

11

There are a couple of options for this:

1. find.knack.com
2. API: https://api.knack.com/v1/applications/YOUR-APP-ID

12

I remember an App where it is possible to get an overview of a Knack App and its connections - like a documentations or visializing of conncections - Anybody know of this?

13

https://find.knack.com/definitions#home

14

I would like to create documentation of my fields, files, pages, filters, menus and relationships.

Before Knack, I used MS Access to build apps for clients. That system lets you print a diagram showing tables with connections and one to many symbols on the connection line. The tables show the fields listed and the connection lines show visually which specific field connects to the other tables. At a more detailed level you can print reports which shows for each field all the attributes, defaults, calculations, etc. In Knack terms, I want documentation for each page and each report as well; such as filters, sorts, data sources, etc.

With those kinds of documentation I can train people, avoid design and enhancement errors, even hire and direct Knack developers much easier than just letting them wander around in the application.

1 Like
15

Thumps up for this.

A possibility to add notes to fields in the builder would be usefull, when coming back to the builder after some time

16

Agree - would also appreciate this.

17

It does makes sense to me too.

Once you have more than x tables and y scenes, you spend most of your time trying to find something.

If Knack needs a direction for future releases this feature would support more complex/large audience apps.

To me, it's a matter of software maturity and Yes Brandon :Software development is hard. Sometimes, very hard. :)

18

It would also be useful to have notes in Tasks, coming back to client's apps after a while would be so much easier if it were possible to document the design in app!!

19

I think I replied on this before, have a look here guys: Knack its an app that provides exactly what you’re looking for. It shows relations between all app objects and fields, along with their structure, and also provides a graphical view of these connections.